Question of the Week: 83 - 10/27/2002Time to Talk Politics and Elections…Eek! It’s the silly season again.

For U.S. Pagans/Heathens: The U.S. is holding mid-term elections Nov. 5th. Will you be voting? What are the issues that are most important to you? Do you vote by issue or by party? Do you have any thoughts on how it will turn out?

Non-U.S. Pagans/Heathens: The U.S. is woefully ignorant about your political processes. Please enlighten us. How many parties do you have? What are the names of the parties and what platforms do they represent? Do you have 'liberals' and 'conservatives'? How often do you vote? Do you elect representatives? How do you contact these representatives about your issues?

As always while talking politics, discussions can become heated. Please stay on the issues and do not resort to personal attacks. Further discussions should be taken to e-mail.

The Second Amendment is still bad for tyrants even if the people are heavily outgunned by the military. Why? One word: assassination. Even the best of rulers has to worry about the occasional Lone Nutcase who can shoot well. How much worse is it with a tyrannical ruler? And no, I am NOT advocating assassination, merely observing one of the facts of history........

This doesn't change the fact that the current adminstration is busily removing every part of the Bill of Rights except the Second Amendment, and the thing about quartering soldiers. We wouldn't want them to be quartering soldiers, now would we?

Another observation: it is far from clear that the average American soldier would in fact shoot at Joe or Jane Citizen. Officers who gave such an order may find the soldiers' guns pointed the other way. The officers, right up to the top brass, know this well, which is why they are notoriously reluctant to use the military in any kind of domestic operation. If Shrub gets too far out of hand, he might find himself overthrown by his generals. This, of course, would only apply if the vast majority of the public were opposed to Shrub's policies. In the case of persecuting Pagans, the average citizen is likely to be amazingly unconcerned.

IMAGE: Gumby Imbread, the average American citizen, is sitting in his living room in West Bumfuck, Ohio, watching TV. An announcement comes on of a Witch-burning to be held. Cut to Gumby, his mouth drooling slightly. He speaks. "Kool. 'Em's gone burn some Witches. I ga go see's 'at. I bets all be able to hear's 'em scream, an' evertheng. I wan' see blood, an' people die". Fade to black.

It's a pretty sad day when the main hope of America is that of so many Third World hellholes: when the military turn on the dictator, how much can he get away with before there is a coup?

I want to be clear that in my harsh criticism of the American nation, and in my desire to find some other nation, I am not just a disgruntled liberal. As Myrddin pointed out, the Democrats have also been working side by side with the Republicans for decades to dismantle everything worthwhile about American society. The nasty, oppressive, puritanical fundies have their mirror in nasty, oppressive, puritanical PC. The fundies, however, are stronger, so I oppose them, in hopes of one day defeating the fundies, and then turning on PC, so it, too, can be defeated.

The present election, however, is one of literally hundreds of events in the last decades which have convinced me that the degeneration of the American soul has gone far too far to ever be repaired.

Ok, I did not vote in this election, that was because I have not changed my regestration to my new adress and because I prefer to to vote for the least idiotic of the idiots. I register as an independent because I vote for what a person tries to do, not for the party that sponsers them. As far as the 2nd goes, I've been shooting guns every since I could hold them(my father is x army), and I own an shoot them to this day. Violence has nothing to do with it, I enjoy testing my skills and tweaking the weapon to work for me, and that is no different than the martial arts I practice or the swords I work out with(I hope to never have to any reason to use any of these skills, but to defend me and mine, I will remember what 2 people taught me over the years... 1. If they want your wallet, give them your wallet, it is nothing more than an aggravation...if they want to hurt you or yours, run them straight over by any means neccesary, and 2 if you must fight, a sword in one hand and a gun in another.....). For those who voted, good for you, I'm glad you did what you could to improve our government, and for those who refuse to vote, please don't fuss about the people who were voted into office, you had a chance to be noticed(even if it was as a decimal of a percentage point), so accept and vote next time.

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